


If Heaven Is When I’m Underneath You

by ShadowsLament



Series: Worship [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Daredevil (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 18:46:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8172040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowsLament/pseuds/ShadowsLament
Summary: To appease Foggy, Matt agrees to find a hobby that does not involve: weapons, items that could be turned into weapons, fighting or situations that might result in bodily harm, priests moonlighting as baristas. His options limited, Matt finally agrees to pose for art students in a hole in the wall studio.





	

Matt had considered terrain mapmaking and had gone so far as to buy clay and cheap poster board, only most models, he’d been told after the fact, were made with layered paper. And recently, by 3D printers. Foggy had explicitly ruled out boxing, along with any other form of fighting or weapons training. (“Also,” he’d said, one foot planted on either side of their tiny kitchen’s threshold, “hobbies are supposed to be fun, Matt, and relaxing. Church might, at a stretch, check off one of those boxes, but I’m gonna say having lattes with a priest is out of the running.”)  

His first encounter with an audiobook had lasted ten hours longer than it should have: too many stray sounds embedded in the recording meant he’d had to track back, repeatedly, until he gave up on the plot. He’d thought of knitting and was overruled. (“Needles are weapons, Matt. Yarn, too, come to think of it. And those--what’s it called--the cross stitchy things? Those wooden circles. Christ,” Foggy exhaled, “let’s hope the bad guys never have to make a diorama.”) Matt’s options narrowed with each conversation, and he was one shot-down suggestion away from telling Foggy to pony up money for a new tie, having irreparably stretched one of his best with exasperated tugs.

After competitive kite flying, soap making, and origami were nixed, Matt walked out of the office. 

He stopped at a sidewalk cart, bought a cup of black tar being passed off as coffee. A generous amount of sugar and one failed attempt to stir the stuff to the bottom later, the sharp corner of a larger object poked him mid-back. Not a gun, or knife. It smelled like plastic. The hiss of cloth, a sleeve sliding over something wide and flat tucked under the arm.

Matt pressed the lid down, lifted his cup. The man behind him shifted his weight from right to left, unintentionally grinding a sugar packet into the pavement. His aftershave was probably advertised as Northern Forest but the reality was Christmas Tree Farm; he’d had ketchup for lunch, and apparently missed his mouth. Three pockets contained a mix of graphite, charcoal, vinyl and gum erasers. Matt took a half step back and turned, slowly.

“Shit, sorry.” The guy plucked at Matt’s shirt to free his portfolio case from where it had snagged on the material. “I always forget with this fucking thing.”

“That’s all right,” Matt said, the sound of his voice redirecting the guy’s attention to his face. Already slightly elevated, his heart reacted to the glasses like a kick drum. A swift glance down at the cane prompted another rapid and heavy beat. “New Yorkers don’t think much of personal space, right? With or without something sharp-cornered under their arm.”

“It didn’t…hurt you? Or something?”

“You’ll have to tell me if my shirt was a casualty.” The tone implied a question, when Matt knew the answer was a single thread reformed into a minute loop, pulling tight a small diameter of cloth over the curve of his ribs near his left elbow. “Otherwise, a trip to the ER to treat a scratch seems excessively cautious.”

“You sure, man?”

“Not worth a second thought.” Matt made to step away but hesitated, swaying, both puppet and master in a momentary show. “I have to ask. What is it?”

“This?” The word was accompanied by unsettled air currents, and a back-of-the-throat cough when the man remembered Matt couldn’t see him jostle the portfolio case forward. “It’s—I’m taking this art class, still life stuff. We have to bring our own materials or get kicked out of the studio, which means I get to lug this fucking case from here to Sunday, twice a week.”

“An artist,” Matt feigned impressed. “Are your ambitions professional or—“

“Nah, it’s my father. Said I needed a hobby.”

“There’s a lot of that going around.”

“Parent?”

“Best friend. My lifestyle, I’m told, is a constant source of concern for him.” Matt smiled and shrugged, lightly tossed out, “I don’t suppose there’s an open slot in your class?”

“No, but—“ Matt had to wonder if this guy always worked out what he was going to say next with the toe of his right foot stenographically tapping the ground. “It’s just, I heard the model scheduled for the next lesson cancelled, and...” 

Matt tipped his head into the pause: he was listening. When nonverbal encouragement didn’t work, he offered, “That’s too bad.”

“You’re tellin’ me. I’ve had it with the fruit and shit. And I was thinking you could do it.”

A quick blink. “Pardon?”

“Maybe I didn’t know oil from acrylic before this class, but beauty? Never had a problem picking out that. Ask my dad,” he said, a wide grin fully accounted for in his voice. “All the time I was spending with fine things is half the reason for this hobby bullshit. And you, you’ve got a fascinating face. Hands, too.”

“I--Thank you, I’m....flattered.” Matt was used to heat beneath his cheeks, generated by a bonfire of bruises and abrasions. Not the kind of blush Karen and Foggy would have a field day with for years to come. “But I’m not really model material.”

“It’s just a few evenings in a quiet studio. There’s usually homemade cannoli, coffee that actually tastes like it. C’mon,” the guy urged, “it might get your friend off your back.”

If he wasn’t the one holding the paintbrushes or stretched canvas then weaponizing them wouldn’t be as much of an issue. He couldn’t imagine what possible objection Foggy could raise against Matt standing still in one place for longer than ten minutes. “I’ll think about it--” Matt arched an eyebrow.

“Gabe.” 

“Matt.” Before Gabe realized what he’d done and awkwardly tried to withdraw his hand, Matt grasped the proffered palm and found a callus budding low on Gabe’s thumb pad. “I can sense some movement,” he explained preemptively, “and introductions tend to literally go hand in hand. Life is slightly more easily lived when you work out the patterns.”

“Did I say fascinating? Because I was right.” Gabe squeezed Matt’s hand, let it go. “Look, if you decide to come, the class meets at Sargent’s, the gallery over on--”

“If I decide to come,” Matt said, “I’ll find it.”

“We start at seven. Get there early.”

Matt swept the cane to his right and stepped away. “It was nice meeting you, Gabe.” He tossed his cup in the nearest bin, glad to be rid of coffee that got heavier as it cooled.

Decidedly still watching, Gabe called, “See you later.”

Wave, walk away. Another pattern Matt had learned early in life.

A throng of misplaced tourists trying to pinpoint when their guide had disappeared parted to let him pass. Thirty-two, enough to nearly fill a charter bus. The pair at the front wore high-priced perfumes and higher heels. The rest, beneath the tang of ammonia in their sweat, were more the hotel shampoo and soap types. Two at the back, listing a bit to the left, had opted for whiskey over eggs that morning for breakfast. Before lunch one of them had moved on to rum and coke.

Glass shattered in an alley one block over, startling a flock of pigeons into flight. Eight floors up, a toddler fell and was hastily shushed by an older child whose heart rate went into overdrive at the first sudden, choked wail. Matt hesitated, but the crying gave way to whispering and a kiss to make it all better, and he moved on.

Foggy insisted, completely in earnest, that Matt’s late night rooftop crouch was the stuff Vogue editorials could only dream of being. It was a pose, Matt supposed, in the strictest sense. But it was incidental; a natural extension of his intent to remain unseen until he decided otherwise. If he walked into Sargent’s it wouldn’t be comparable to stepping up to a jury, even. He wouldn’t have his voice; odds were against keeping the cane to clasp between both hands. There’d be no juror’s box to walk the length of and back again.

They would study him, Matt reasoned, but the students or artists--whatever they liked to be called--wouldn’t be looking at him. Their scrutiny would fan out from the lines around his eyes, down his surprisingly straight nose. They’d gauge the depth of his dimples, if he was asked to smile. Maybe they’d curse his stubble, or have to spend longer than they’d like on his Adam’s apple. His hair was a breeze-blown mess, but that might be fine, a challenge. For a couple of hours, at least, he wouldn’t be Matt Murdock or Daredevil; he’d be a concentration of texture and color, shape. In the studio he could potentially be as anonymous as he was behind the mask.

If not, he was pretty good at adapting.

A pack of newspapers fluttered in the draft of wind coolly teasing the tips of Matt’s ears. The temp had dropped three degrees since he’d left the office, and the sidewalk traffic had thinned out. Matt tapped his watch, quickened his pace.

Outside Sargent’s, Gabe’s heel scraped against brick, slapped down on cracked stone. “Knew you’d show.” A strip of small bells struck glass, followed by fire-warmed air fleeing out the open door. “Studio’s through that yellow door at the back of--” Gabe cut himself off with a sigh. 

Matt laughed. “Getting used to it takes time.”

“In the interest of not looking like I enjoy fucking things up, just tell me what to do. Here on out.” Gabe kept enough distance between them to suggest he wasn’t hovering, exactly. “If you need me to get behind you and push, throwing out the occasional trip hazard warning--”

“Are you sure Foggy didn’t send you?”

A third heart beat and something pungent--undried linseed oil, Matt guessed, mixed with turpentine--cut through the gallery. “You must be Matt.” A woman’s voice, soft as smoke. “You haven’t posed before.”

A statement without inflection. Without implication. A prosecutor’s wet dream. “Depending on who you ask,” Matt said, “I take directions well.”

“I very much doubt that.” 

“On that welcoming note,” Gabe interjected, “shouldn’t Matt get situated in the studio?”

“Bring him back,” she said. “Frannie pulled out the coat rack for his clothes.”

Matt turned toward Gabe, both eyebrows raised. “For my clothes?”

“About that, in my defense—“

“He didn’t know,” she said, and walked away.

“We’ll be mid-Rapture before Ash decides to become a forthcoming member of society,” Gabe said, projecting, Matt assumed, for Ash’s benefit. His heart rate had spiked at Matt’s question, but had returned to resting when he quietly added, “The only info we got on this session was that we’d be working with a model. If it had said figure sketching, or nude anything, I would’ve been up front about it. I’ll talk to her. She’s in a pinch, anyway, and--”

The door opened, setting off the string of bells. A chorus of greetings.

Matt brushed his fingertips along his outer thigh, caught the tender edge of what had to be a fairly remarkable bruise. The last set of stitches Claire had put in wouldn’t have dissolved yet. Then there was the-- 

Gabe grazed him with an elbow. “It’s now or never. If you wanna go—“

“I don’t.” Matt lifted his bent arm. “Tell me about the art we’re passing on the way."

He half-listened as Gabe reeled off details like he was rummaging through a kitchen drawer, and came up with the locations of six more potential bruises. At least three had to have faded, possibly four.

Gabe huffed. “You’re not even listening. Are my descriptions that bad?”

“Not at all,” Matt said. “Is the spatula a metaphor?”

“If only I fucking knew.” Gabe ushered Matt down a tight hallway into a cloistered room, where the wallpaper smelled like wax and chalk, and the air in between like a drug store’s deodorant aisle. Matt counted nine hearts beating out of sync. Three women and six men positioned in a semi-circle, most of them seated. Gabe’s grip on his arm loosened. “You’ve got the undressing part covered, right?”

“Most days. Where’s the coat rack?”

“Ten or twelve steps to your right.”

Matt nodded, his cane striking a thin leg of wood before finding a clear path. Gabe hesitated near the door, but shuffled over to let in a latecomer with motor oil drying on his hands. Matt pulled at the knot—long, solid strides; a ridiculously low resting heart rate—and pulled off his tie, catching the loop on a hook. He moved from button—“Problem, Steve?”—to button—“Sorry, Ash, won’t happen again.”—and tugged the shirt free.

“Matt?” Gabe, behind him. “You good?”

“I’m—“ Distracted, Matt realized. By a handful of words, the vocal equivalent of steam after a warm shower. “Fine.”

“I was starting to think that shirt was super glued on. Not to rush you, but,” Gabe said, “Ash’s face is starting to look more like a dagger.”

Matt rolled his shoulder, eased out of the left sleeve. “I’ll hurry.”

“Gabe. Seat.” Ash adjusted pads of paper, tearing off pages. “Tonight you will begin a series of...”

Filtering out her list of requirements for the first sketch, Matt took a deep breath—under the oil: leather, coffee—and let the shirt fall. His shoes were next, then his socks. The floorboards were unvarnished, and splintering. He’d walked on worse--jagged concrete, rusted fencing--and hadn’t felt the urge to follow up with a tetanus shot. Worst case scenario, he still had that Band-aid Foggy gave him for Christmas in his wallet.

He thumbed the button on his slacks loose. The zipper parted with a metallic hiss several decibels louder than the hum of the wires snaking along the baseboards. Good for two, maybe three table lamps, a couple more standing in separate corners at the back. Any yellowing bruises should be safe from sight. 

The promised cannoli were being unboxed in the gallery, set out on a metal folding table badly in need of WD-40. They didn’t come from a bakery in the Kitchen; Gabe actually meant homemade, and by someone who believed, rightly, that too much confectioner’s sugar was the only way to go. In for a penny, in for a pound of chocolate chips. 

Matt shook his head, muttered, “In for a--” and tugged down on both pockets. Before his pants had cleared his hips, nine of the eleven heart beats in the room skittered like butterflies anticipating a break from the bell jar. 

In the middle of indicting the Vitruvian Man, Ash wasn’t interested, and Steve, his heart beat was as steady as the hand he ran down the sheet of paper on his lap.

A few stretched out seconds passed without comment on the damaged canvas of Matt’s back. Easy enough to believe in signs when blood or bone wasn’t on the line, when it was silence that swayed him. That made him equally aware of his lungs’ contracted state and the easing of it. Foggy would have long since questioned how it was he could take a beating night after night and head back to an alley for more, no hesitation, but here, where the only thing that could hurt him was pride, he stalled with his thumbs hooked on his boxer briefs. “Fuck it.”

He inched the material lower, and lower, the same skittering hearts responding with a sharp spike, increased speed. When he turned, leaving the cane, his clothes, on the floor, the room stirred with the abrupt change in breathing patterns.

“Knew it.” Gabe, to no one in particular.

“Fuck me.” Hushed, uncomfortably reverent, from the woman on the far right. Next to Steve. 

Ash’s cool fingers encircled Matt’s wrist. “Twelve steps. How long will you be able to stand without a break?”

“How long do you need me to?” Matt asked.

“An hour, to start. Keep still.”

The last step was onto a worn woven rug, hot against the soles of his feet. An ancient radiator rattled in the hallway: unlikely storage space, but Matt understood working with what was available. “Hands by my sides okay, or--”

“Fisted,” Ash instructed. “To suit the scars.” Unmindful of Matt’s open mouth and potential hornets’ nests, she added, “The glasses have to go.” An updraft of air trailed her arm. “I’ll take them.”

Matt took off the glasses--Steve’s steadfast heart skipped a beat--and let Ash walk away with the frame folded over her collar. “I’ll be wanting those back.”

“Begin.”

He’d argue, later, that it wasn’t a conscious decision. No one in their right mind would turn their head if they had to hold it at an angle for twenty minutes, forget sixty. But Steve slid forward--jeans rasping over wood--until he had to stop or sit on the floor, and Matt couldn’t imagine doing this another way. 

The muted monotony of lead scratching paper was preferable to the round of sirens bleeding sound through a nearby intersection: EMTs lamenting the lack of a cigarette break over a cardiac arrest patient. Inside the studio, the relative quiet was broken by the occasional appreciative murmur. A heart rate falling out of focus. A muffled cough. Mostly there was Steve, breathing soft and even, or not at all, when Matt’s unseeing stare found him.

Bags, pockets, were essentially cabinets of curiosities. Random pieces of everyday life crammed in with lint and loose threads. Spread the stuff over a table and it’s possible to fill in a few blanks. The type of food a person preferred, their bad habits. What they did for work. Whether they had kids or pets, both. If they were hoping for, counting on sex. 

Steve had the supplies he needed for the class, and a key. Grease stained, sticking slightly to the lining of his pocket. Matt assumed for the motorcycle parked behind the studio.

“Take a break.” Ash pushed off the back wall, trailing silk. Stabbing the cloth into Matt’s chest, she said, “Coffee’s in the gallery with food.”

The robe was knee length, missing a belt. “Thanks.”

“Can I get you a cup of coffee?” Oil, leather beneath a layer of lead. One of the strongest hearts Matt had ever heard, and that voice. Closer. Out of reach. “A seat?”

Matt smiled. “I heard there was cannoli.”

“Always. With chocolate chips or--”

“That’s questionable?”

Steve laughed, lightly. “No, I guess it isn’t. Hold on.” Two chairs lifted without a sound to betray the effort. “Step to your right if you want that seat. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Matt felt like he was back in his first place--a single room with a broken window, a hole in the wall revealing the building’s lack of insulation, and beyond the studs and noggings, barely, late January biting deep into the sleeping city--when Steve’s geothermal heat receded. Left with his own elevated heart rate, Matt squeezed his hands, still fisted, to crush the pins and needles beneath the skin. He found the back of the chair--”If that’s for Matt, he takes it with sugar”--body warmed, a notch in the wood like a fingerprint left in the corner. 

As big as Matt thought Steve must be, his footsteps scarcely registered. He seemed to know where underlying cracks would groan the loudest under pressure and avoided them, yet deliberately cleared his throat when he entered the room.

“That was quick.”

“Lessons learned,” Steve said, without elaborating. “Can I have your hand?”

“Is this a marriage proposal or am I finally going to get that cannoli?”

“Would you,” Steve said, and he was smiling, Matt would bet the last of Nelson and Murdock’s petty cash on it, “without at least knowing my name?”

Matt held out his hand. “Matt Murdock.”

“Steve Rogers.” 

The name nudged at Matt, a memory stored behind all the rest. There had to be at least a dozen valid reasons to tease it out, turn it over. He knew where to look for teeth marks; for damaged ropes, evidence of bridges burned. But faith pointed to the wide and unyielding shelter of Steve’s palm. To the mirror pulse in the lingering press of their thumbs, and the questions Steve brushed away from the small and scattered scars he found.

He could recite Foggy’s monologue verbatim, the one about sacrificing common sense for haste, and life turning up shortly after to take its pound of flesh out in Matt’s blood. (“Your instincts,” Foggy sighed, “can’t keep telling safety to go fuck itself. That’s just rude, Matt, like, horribly.”) Whatever it was that got in the way--the split lip, or swelled-shut eye; the way Foggy’s stare turned microscopic over the smallest laceration--Matt hadn’t been able to convince his best friend that, sure, his execution fell short sometimes, but his instincts rarely did.

How or why he knew Steve’s name didn’t matter: If it turned into a switchblade, he’d deal with it.

“Asses in seats, now.”

The completion of a handshake, Matt thought, distantly, had never been less perfunctory. Had never been a slow drag, wrist to palm to fingertips. Cataloging lines--head, heart, life--as though they were rooftops and alleys, the kind of knowledge necessary to his survival. It had also never happened at a worse time, the minute splitting along Ash’s fault line. “Steve--”

A flick to the robe’s sleeve. “You good for another hour?”

“If I can have a few seconds first.”

“One,” Ash agreed. “Drop the robe.”

Steve leaned closer. The scent of oil had faded, removed to a whisper. How good was he with his hands? “The coffee’ll be cold by then, but would you consider--”

“Save the pastry.” Matt tossed the robe, balled up like a misshapen grenade, in the direction of the coat rack. “I know a place we can go.”

Where the rug had lost its radiator-supplied heat to the floorboards, the threads had kept his footprints. Toe to toe, settling into the angles of the previous hour, he listened for a heart beating stronger than the rest. Bright as a second star to the right, Matt’s eyes lifted, shifted, to find it in the dark.

Steve’s pencil stumbled. He exhaled. 

Matt backed off from a smile, his lips twitching. Philatelists went after rare stamps, while he, apparently, collected sincerity. Foggy was the first, and should have been the last. If Matt’s senses extended to precognition, he might have been able to head it off at the pass, but as it was, he couldn’t have anticipated Karen. Or Claire. Steve. Maybe they weren’t his to keep, but while the glue held, he’d selfishly take what he could get. 

Besides, he was curious. The motorcycle wasn’t a surprise; that it was an older model, one that reliably broke down, begged the question why. He wanted to ask if Steve was stationed at Fort Hamilton, if he had something to do with the arsenal at Watervilet, or if, for whatever inexplicable reason, he’d been discharged. And then he wanted to put words aside in favor of archiving details with his fingertips. The length of Steve’s hair, and the texture. The geometry of his jaw and his mouth. The notch between Steve’s clavicles, to measure the depth or slide into the shallow. He couldn’t adequately articulate why the need was so steep, Matt simply had to know.

“Finish up.”

“Thank god.” Gabe sat up straighter, cracking his neck and knuckles. “No offense, Matt.”

“None taken.” 

Steve’s sketchpad scratched the floor. Heading towards the hallway, his footsteps seemed to ricochet between the studio’s four corners. Tension pulled on Matt’s shoulders like the bones beneath his skin were strings. Steve dropped to his haunches near the coat rack, gathering Matt’s shirt and pants, his socks and shoes, even snagging the cane. As quickly as Matt’s muscles had tightened, the pressure released.

“You’re smiling,” Steve said, handing off Matt’s clothes, “so you’re not mad.”

Matt slipped into his shirt. “You didn’t pick up my stuff because you thought I couldn’t do it.”

“Never crossed my mind.” Truth. “But that place you mentioned did.” Also true.

“Ash has my--”

“Here.” The temples from hinge to tip were so cold, Matt checked the glass for frost. “You’ll be back.”

“What is your problem with question marks?” Matt asked, stowing the glasses in a pocket. “You just don’t like them, or--”

“Questioning what you already know is a waste of time.” Ash paused at the door, turning back into the studio. “Do the world a favor, boys. When you fuck, film it.”

“Make love, Ash,” Gabe called after her. “Be a little classy about it, huh?”

“You know,” Matt murmured, leaning into Steve, “I’ve heard studies are being conducted to prove shared lucid dreaming is possible.”

“Do we have enough to go to them with,” Steve asked, “or should we stick around, see what else happens?” 

“Get out of here, you crazy kids,” Gabe insisted, swinging the portfolio case’s strap up to his shoulder. It caught a stool, knocking it over. “Shit.” And an easel. Or two. “This fucking thing,” he growled, and went down on his knees after the fallen supplies. “Before you head out, keep in mind--” rooting around for the pencil quickly rolling out of his reach, his voice was muffled “--I’d pay to see that sex tape. Good money, too.”

Matt sighed. “You’re positive Foggy didn’t put you up to this?”

“Never met the man,” Gabe said. “Protect that national treasure with your life, Matt. See you Sunday, Steve.”

Steve took a step forward. “Are you sure you don’t need--”

Gabe’s hand shot up, waving them off so insistently, Matt felt it like a sudden, frenzied breeze. “Got this!”

“Alright.” Steve ducked his head, murmured, “We should go before he accidentally breaks one of the cats on Ash’s desk.”

It was difficult to ignore, worse than an itch at the center of his back, but Matt held the question off until half a block stood between them and Sargent’s. “Cats?”

“Seven of them, all porcelain.”

“Has anyone asked?” 

“No one wants to pick up that stick.” 

Matt laughed, skirting around an abandoned trash can lid propped up by a potted plant tipped on its side. Steve shifted with him, seamlessly, and fell back into step without breaking his stride. “How many years have you served?”

Steve was quiet, the kind that hinted at one of two things: a struggle or a lie. When he answered, it was with the truth, a neat evasion. “A lot.” The sidewalk was narrow, cluttered with discarded furniture, stacks of pizza boxes and Chinese takeout containers. There wasn’t a crowd at that hour, but as close as they were walking, they might have been in the thick of one. Their hands brushed. The contact was brief and carried an electric charge, creating a static spark. Matt wouldn’t wager on whose breath caught quicker, but Steve rallied first. “What gave me away?”

“A lot,” Matt echoed. “Army?”

“At first. What about you?” Steve asked, amusement lifting the weight that had settled on his tone. “Accountant?”

“Worse.” Matt grinned. “Lawyer.”

“That explains how you stayed steady in the studio.”

“I don’t know about that,” Matt said. “Stripping in front of a jury isn’t a habit I’ve cultivated since law school.”

“What would I have to do,” Steve said, his voice stroking a lower octave, “for you to consider making it a habit in front of me?”

Matt stopped walking. Steve put his back to a small restaurant, cozy with overgrown ferns and outside tables boxed in by trellises blotted out by tomatoes. Basil and balsamic, wine from a broken bottle, soaked the air and pavement. Maria Callas’ voice drifted out from the row of open windows. “We’re going to look back on this,” Matt said quietly, closing the distance between them, finding Steve’s hip beneath the heavy leather of his jacket, “and cringe at the cliché.”

Steve lowered his mouth to Matt’s and held there, a breath apart. “It doesn’t have to be one.”

“That’s opera--” Matt angled his head “--playing behind you, Steve.”

“La Traviata.” Steve’s breath kindled at Matt’s jaw. “I know. That makes it worse.”

Matt’s voice rasped against the back of his throat. “What do you suggest?”

“That place you had in mind.” Slight circles, sketched on the small of Matt’s back. “How far is it?”

“A block.” Matt pressed his leg between Steve’s thighs, his fingers tight on the taut skin beneath Steve’s thin cotton t-shirt. “We could run.”

His definition of sin was rewritten by Steve’s hips, rocking forward, pinning Matt to the broad hand splayed across the curving hollow of his spine. And then Steve stepped back, and cold air crept into the empty space left behind. 

“Steve?”

“One second.” The restaurant’s door was yanked open; the music swelled and swayed out, conversations floating up from the back of the narrow dining room. Topics ranged from a singer who did Sinatra’s catalog better than Sinatra to an exhaustive description of a blow job to a pit bull visiting a local senior center. Matt focused on a single heart beat, memorizing its quickened rhythm. “Okay,” Steve said a minute later, catching Matt’s hand in his, “let’s go.”

“What--”

“Dessert.” Steve shook the bag; the paper, folded over on itself to seal the contents inside, rustled like mid-October leaves half-trapped in a grate. “I left ours in the studio.”

“And that seemed like the best moment to fix it?”

“Cliché averted.”

Matt’s mouth ticked up at the corner. “I’m walking us into another one.”

“Well, then,” Steve lightly squeezed Matt’s hand, “walk faster.”

“Here.” Matt towed Steve down a short alley. “For expediency's sake, if you would pull that fire escape down.”

Rusted, stubborn after years of disuse, the metal protested Steve’s insistence before the ground halted its progress. Steve moved to the side. “After you.”

Matt took the steps two at a time, heedless of the clatter. The balusters and handrail vibrated when Steve followed at the same hurried speed. At the top, before Steve could step onto the roof, Matt turned, found the lapels of Steve’s jacket with both hands. “Now.”

Surging up the last step, Steve’s lips--full, softer than God allowed--met Matt’s and clung. His hands skimmed Matt’s hips, his ribs. He held Matt like one of them might fall if he let go, his mouth open, hot, following where Matt’s led. 

The noise of his city faded, a movie playing out on mute. When he slept, it was never as silent; pain and desperation, shaped by unfamiliar voices, found a way to fracture the few dreams he had. It wouldn’t--couldn’t--last, but if he got a meanwhile, this was it: scorched by Steve’s skin where it stretched bare to his; his teeth on the curve of Steve’s bottom lip; the shaken sound Steve made, low in his throat, when Matt tugged on his hair.

“ _Matt_.”

“Your voice is ridiculous,” Matt murmured, a word for each breath, each pause in the kiss. “Next Sunday’s confession is going to have to include listening to porn.”

“Three Hail Mary’s and you’re covered,” Steve ran his hands down Matt’s back to his ass, “absolved.” 

Matt laughed, felt Steve’s smile against his lips like the sun was rising several hours before it should. “Not sure that’s how it works.”

“Tonight,” Steve said, “it does.” Resting his forehead against Matt’s, he sighed. “So why this place?”

“I thought you’d like the view. It’s pretty amazing from this roof. There’s usually a couch pushed against the door,” Matt explained, “and occasionally a dog for company.”

“Should’ve mentioned the dog sooner. I wouldn’t have stopped for dessert.”

“Are you saying the dog would get you here quicker than the thought of fucking me?”

Steve’s fingers on Matt’s nape--his breathing--stilled. “I’m an old-fashioned guy, Matt,” he said. “If we’re going to fuck, it’s going to happen in bed. The first time. After that, you can have me anywhere you want.”

“On that hideous rug in the studio?”

“We’ll bankrupt Gabe.”

“There’s a table in my office. One of the legs is shorter by at least an inch. It makes an incredible amount of noise.”

“We’ll break it. I’ll bring a ruler when we go looking for a new one.”

“Do you know how many rooftops there are in Hell’s Kitchen alone?”

“I don’t need to,” Steve said, “because you do. Tell me where to go, I’ll be there.”

Nothing about Matt’s life was that easy. “You didn’t ask how I knew about the view.”

“Because you might have seen it, once.” Steve’s thumb marked the length of Matt’s cheekbone. “You hear it now. The woman on the seventh floor, that was a cello she was playing, and there was a violin in the corner.”

“There’s also a harp,” Matt said. “I think she keeps it in her bathroom.” He took Steve’s hand, put together the puzzle of their fingers, and drew him towards the couch. Three of the coils had broken and poked holes in the thin corduroy. Cigarette burns formed crop circles on the left arm. Steve didn’t say a word about the stains, the missing cushion. He sat and pulled Matt down after him, the bag from the restaurant at his feet. “What did you get?”

“They were out of cannoli, so our choices are sfogliatella or zeppole.”

“Give me something,” Matt said, after the bag was open and the pastry divided. The unfairness of the quiet demand closed his throat, but he swallowed the deep-fried dough, licked powdered sugar off his thumb and index finger. “You started in the army. You like art, and dogs. You don’t believe in coddling the blind.”

“I’ll trade you.” Steve pulled apart the flaky layers of his dessert to scoop out the ricotta at the center. “A detail for a detail. You’re already three up on me.”

“You’ve seen me naked,” Matt pointed out. “That should knock out all three.”

“Should.” Steve’s grin was evident in his voice. “Doesn’t.”

“The next time I need to negotiate my rent, I’m bringing you along. Three things.” Matt considered his options, went for the most innocuous of those that came immediately to mind. “Alright, well, you had it right, I wasn’t born blind. There was an accident, chemicals. Since I’m feeling generous, that’ll count as one. My best friend and I started our own firm, Nelson and Murdock. Most days we’re barely treading water. As for the third--” He hesitated, and when Steve didn’t push, the steady beat of his heart lulled Matt into admitting, “I could get used to this.”

“I already am,” Steve said quietly. “My turn.” He shifted on the couch, stretching out his legs. “I recently decided it would be a good idea to restore an old bike. Based on the number of times it’s broken down, I should have left the repair work to a friend of mine.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“He’s got a lot on his plate,” Steve said, “and working on it beats staring at the ceiling or a wall when I can’t sleep.” 

“Why can’t you sleep?”

Steve laughed. “I’ll answer, but then you’re up for three.” He lifted Matt’s hand to his mouth, moved from one knuckle to the next, his breath painting a softer shade of a kiss on the abraded skin and scars there. “I’ve seen a lot,” he said, “and haven’t been able to shake all of it.”

“Nightmares?” Matt nodded. “I’m familiar. When I was a kid, after my dad--”

“Matt?” Steve stood up, fast, and followed Matt to the center of the roof. “What’s--”

“On the fire escape,” Matt said quickly. “Three guns.”

“How many men?”

“Two.”

“Coming up or breaking in?”

“They heard our voices,” Matt said. “Their plans changed.”

“Good.”

Foggy would have huffed out an are-you-kidding-me breath, muttered Matt’s name and _typical_ in the same sentence, and with reason: Gun or knife, fist or boot, Matt reacted to a threat like he’d been born with the habit buried deeper in his brain and body than a bullet could lodge. Not entirely without thought, but, occasionally, close enough. Steve was a strategist: he’d kept his questions relevant and short, and planted himself slightly behind Matt, far enough to the left side to guarantee unimpeded movement. And not a minute before Matt had stopped just short of handing over his mask.

The men climbed onto the roof, silent except for a snicker at his expense, the snap of a bottle top splitting beneath a heavy step. Matt cocked his head. “Steve?”

“Mmm?”

“Second date?”

“What time should I be in your bed?”

Matt grinned, and moved.

**Author's Note:**

> Fic title taken from Brandyn Burnette's "Worship"


End file.
